December 4, 2007
10:00 AM (EST)

News Release Number: STScI-2007-42

How White Dwarfs Get Their 'Kicks'

December 4, 2007: NASA's Hubble Space Telescope is providing strong evidence that white dwarfs,
the burned-out relics of stars, are given a "kick" when they form. The sharp
vision of Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys uncovered the speedy white
dwarfs in the ancient globular star cluster NGC 6397, a dense swarm of hundreds
of thousands of stars.